One of the surprising results of the survey those who sell commercial time management systems are all starting to sound alike, and make things seem too easy.
Only 24% disagreed with the statement “most commercial time management systems are essentially saying the same things.”
This made me think that there is some convergence happening between the different systems that are sold, whether it be online, in books or in seminars. Users apparently come to the learning experience expecting to hear the same old thing they have heard before.
Perhaps this is the natural result of the same ideas being shared back and forth. As far as I can tell, there has been no breakthrough research in this area, for reasons I have written about before.
The other interesting finding is that some 46% said “No” to the question of whether or not teachers of time management tips, lessons and techniques give an accurate picture of how easy/hard implementation will be? Only 19% agreed.
This one is understandable, I think.
When someone is trying to sell a particular time management system, the idea is to promise the maximum results possible based on a small investment of time, energy and money. It’s easy to overstate the benefit and understate the cost.
The fact is, changing habits is difficult, slow work. However, I don’t think there are too many people who are interested in that approach if they have a choice. They’d rather purchase some Air Jordans in order to instantly “be like Mike,” rather than spend the hours in the gym that is required.
To me, this explains the fascination with “time management tips.” It rests on a hope that big improvements will somehow come from implementing one or two easy, effortless tips.
At the same time, only a small number had the experience of being excited about a time management technique they had learned (9%.) This makes me think that most people are interested in being more productive, but simply ineffective at making the transition.
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My guess is that we sometimes have to take a different angle at something before we can get any productivity system clicking on all eight cylinders.
I remember attempting to use my Franklin-Covey day planner and using it fairly successfully for many years but still felt that there was something more to it.
Then I read the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and it shed a different light upon my use of the Franklin Covey Day Planner.
When I read David Allen’s “Getting Things Done”, it was like a new light bulb turning on and further illuminating a new corridor that was once very dimly lit.
Then when David Allen’s “Making It All Work” came out, there was just another explosion. This book took a different look at the same concepts that were revealed in “Getting Things Done”.
Sometimes reading different people’s take or perspective on a productivity system helps us create our own system.
Leo Babauta’s Zen To Done system (on offshoot of GTD) argues that we have to look at our organizational system as a series of habits to adopt. Focus on one part of your system and repeat that as a daily habit. After numerous repetition, it will become second nature to us and we can put it on auto-pilot.
I think that’s what’s happening here. People are excited for the first few weeks of using a new system but keep forgetting that they have to “make a habit” of all the different aspects of the productivity system. We may be using part of the system but some other parts of the system requires us to adopt the habit over a long period of time until we can accept it as part of own productivity system.
I think I have also been guilty of not knowing that “make a habit” principle.
I love new ideas, but they are useless to my time management if they can’t be converted into habits that I can sustain. Unfortunately, that comes only from making a decent attempt.
Sometimes, the environment supports the new habit, but most times it must be created somehow. I think new ideas are easy to find (thanks to the internet) but the right environment is something that we are weak at creating…
Thanks for that very important point.